In case you missed the tweets Richard Armitage just deleted …

So what was it this time? I definitely did not see any bullying. Some comment on him being too / really thin. Is it because he said where he was? If he was trying to fix a typo, that didn’t work out so well. FFS.

He isn’t but it makes us feel like we’re having one. Well actually not 😎I had a right old laugh when I noticed, shook me head and proceeded to go about me own business 😊 a few meters away from his own business. Good thing I’m not closer 😂

Believe me, he’s enjoying this.
Like Hariclea I burst out in great big laugh.
For just a nano-second I contemplated sending him a DM and to offer a communicative helping hand. Then sanity got the better of me.

Super hot pic, and I officially give up trying to understand why he deletes all the tweets… no bad behavior, from what I saw. The toying with me seems more & more like it. I don’t take this kind of “stuff” in real life, so good thing it’s not 🙂

me either — a real life person who did this kind of thing, unless they were someone I could not eliminate from my life, like a relative — would not be getting calls returned. I just hope he stops deleting tweets about things that matter. I don’t care about anything Cybersmile does, and I can live without selfies (though it’s cruel to unsay them), but this weekend was ridiculous.

I have to agree…. while everyone deletes sometimes, including celebs, the frequency is just dizzying & it’s getting old. He can & should do whatever he wants, of course, but it unfortunately forces me not to care. If that makes sense.

“Think before you…” If he truly believes what he says then this must be some kind of game. Yes, he can tweet and delete anything he wants. However, as I’m not a fan of games, I once again feel the need to back off.

I think he has his own reasons for deleting his tweets. I agree with some fans who suggested the delete was likely prompted by a series of inappropriate responses to his last 2 tweets . Cybersmile was tagged on all these tweets so they couldn’t retweet his tweets as it would lead a timeline of all these inappropriate responses. I do wish Twitter will make an edit button at least. The selfie was really good .

So, just to be clear about what you are saying, he deleted these tweets because people responded “inappropriately” the last time? Or these tweets were deleted because they had incorrect information in them?

I think because Cybersmile was tagged in RA’s tweets and all responses to his tweets (mostly concerning the selfie, not SCD, some of them inappropriate) were tagged too. So maybe he is thinking it’s taking away from the Cyberbullying message. The incorrrect date of SCD also could be a reason…

I take his deletes as a “f— you, watch me delete more innocuous tweets, take that, and that.” I don’t mind the attitude, it would be rather refreshing. But why did he misspell “bullying” three times? The word is not bulling. He could look it up on the Cybersmile website if he wasn’t sure. Not a fan of the photo, but it definitely projects a kind of bad boy vibe, which goes with pissing fans off by deleting tweets. Maybe he is just messing with us? I have no idea, not being on Twitter, but I find it amusing, in a way. Is deleting tweets considered passive aggressive or just aggressive? Or just irritating?

True. But now we can debate whether he really wrote those tweets himself, or not, for the umpteenth time. We know he is not a great speller, and wouldn’t a media minion spell bullying correctly? Hmmm, new fodder for more speculation? 🙂

I honestly don’t think he’s playing any games or toying with people. It seems like he’s just never figured out how to be comfortable with himself on SM, or figured out how people are going to engage in return. He may be hyper-critical regarding his public presentation and he gets jittery. To do Twitter well, you have to have the capacity to say what you’re going to say and let it hang out there. But some folks are sensitive to pushback, personal or political. Things like giving too much info, looking too silly, or negative personal responses bother them. They want to control it better and so they pull back. He may be one of those types.

I think that he needs to take his own advice and really take up the space he needs to on SM, unapologetically. But most advice is autobiographical – the advice he gives others on social media is the advice he needs to take the most.

I agree, heather, that he’s not playing cruel or silly games. I think he deleted the first two when he saw that their political nature was causing trouble. But, I think he was asked to delete the most recent, either by Cybersmile or by the film producers (or both) possibly because Cybersmile wanted a platform all to itself and Mid Life Crisis didn’t want anything put out there until they had announced it themselves. They did, however, ‘like’ that tweet and it can still be seen on their page.

If he’s one of those types, I’d suggest he pick a different social medium. Instagram, perhaps. There are plenty of people who hate Twitter. I’m not a huge fan — it’s just become necessary to be present there because he got an account. Why pick the Wild West if you’re more comfortable in the suburbs?

Yeah, if it’s bugging you and you can. I’m never one to say “don’t take things so seriously,” but if it’s bothering you then it’s a good time to be asking yourselves questions about it. A few days away might make things calmer.

Thanks for the comment and welcome. You’re engaging with a straw man here. No one in the entire conversation said he needs to be perfect. Armitage’s issues with orthography are a matter of long discussion and joking in the fandom, particularly at this blog.

Nice photo. Thanks for showing us, Serv. I would have missed it because, as usual, it appears to have lasted only a short while on Twitter. I am wondering if he has done this on purpose or not. The leather jacket looks pretty cool and I rather love his hair. As you can see, I am trying to concentrate on the only good things I can find in this weird situation! I think the only BULLING that is going on is coming from him at the moment, quite frankly.

Perhaps he’s just badly jetlagged – helps to explain typo and getting his days of the week wrong and posting things that would interfere both with Cybersmile’s platform and his promise to keep his lips zipped about Mid Life Crisis. He can’t do right for doing wrong, meaning to please his fans with a selfie and then treading on other people’s toes, perhaps. And isn’t that jacket the same one he wore ages ago in China?

In RA’s case, don’t you mean the screen subtracts10 pounds? Maybe he thought it would be fun to scare his fans into seeing him so thin by using some sort of photoshopping like they do with Kim Kardashian’s big butt?

Sorry, you can blame me if you want. I LMAO when he tweeted and deleted after he realized he screwed up. I called him out on his mistakes. Heck, it was really funny. I could not stop laughing all day. BTW, you won’t be able to find my tweets b/c I deleted them for fun like him. He’s already caused a trend for me.

I saw the tweets when I got up this morning, checking for either announcement. Later when I saw your tweet that they had been deleted, I didn’t think it was malicious. I think that today’s issue is having divulged SOHO. Either he, or someone else realised there could be hoards of fans trying to find him. Then they nipped it in the bud. As far as previous deleted tweets, I still think it comes down to self esteem. He doesn’t see himself as we see him.

working nearby i can confirm no hoards anywhere in sight 😉 seriously, it’s not something that happens in London, people like Hiddles can securely and lonely run round known parks without being bothered 🙂 He’s never really been bothered on the streets here (stage door doesn’t count as organised interaction:-))

But people like Benedict Cumberbatch can’t, so I’m not sure the generalization holds. I’m constantly seeing phone pics of him doing things like buying a newspaper or tweets about him being in some restaurant or other. Not that Armitage’s fandom is anything like Cumberbatchs, but Stephens also has fans.

Well Sherlock is filming again so that’s another issue 😉 And yes Batchy is in a singular situation. People might say hi, but apart from stage doors and performance related incidents the rest is not really affecting daily life. It’s not even a massive issue where i work, people gather but it’s not crazy numbers and it would be public appearance anyway, which is not the case. I just don’t think that is a realistic reason for the deletion, potential of fan hoards chasing R down 🙂

doubt it, unless it’s a specific public appearance, but then again he’s comfortable with them when they happen and can pretty much out-run any 😉 LOL I wouldn’t worry about that one in any situation, he can handle himself, but v different personality (not saying in any kind of comparison +/-, just v different).

do you mean the snogging ones? been out of the loop internet wise and not so up to date on his stuff 🙂 Well, if it is the snogging ones seems they have caused almost universal pleasure here, i had a right ol’ laugh this morning when my steady opera critics were chatting about them complimentary online LOL Tells you what my timeline is like and it made it into my tiny bubble of the world. Yeah that was PR or whatever one would call it, one way of saying it without opening your mouth. We’re pleased for him seems to be the local sentiment, mine too 🙂 Says my office as well it seems – it was the talk at lunch (but he’s a frequent visitor here). Beyond that… i’ll leave it to his fandom and his own apparently capable self, that one certainly knows what he is doing and what the consequences are.

My favorite comment about it was in The Guardian — editorial saying “this as close as we’ll get to two memes dating.” My reaction was, well, he’s famous for not sticking with anyone for very long, now he knows that a breakup is guaranteed AND he’ll be immortalized in a song.

I find the reactions to his selfies, and how we all have our own different constructs of Mr Armitage interesting …… Personally, I do not find this particular picture “hot”; I find the pursed lips and his demeanour in the picture a bit “precious”. It makes him look narcissistic IMO, and therefore, off-putting to me. However, if this look is for his role in the film Mid Life Crisis, then I think he has been successful in achieving a slightly mincy, “cool” pop star look. Maybe that was the brief for the role?!

Ok, truly, my head is spinning! Can’t keep up with the tweet/delete routine! These last few days are the first time I’ve been watching closely enough to see the disappearing act, and really it’s pretty annoying. I’m still excited to see some of RA’s new work ( I hope), but this is all perplexing. Who knows why he deletes pretty harmless IMO tweets? But even if they’re deleted by a PR person, that person would be in his employ and so have his approval to do so. So, deleted because he chooses to, in effect. Thanks for all your interesting and insightful posts.

I’m afraid I should be away from the social networks for a while to calm down. So hard time for me as a newbie. I wonder if one selfie and the “weird behaviour” in Twitter discussed last week can make me back off from him. I think not.

I’ve been a fan for six years and this board is heavily populated by people who have been fans for a little longer. It’s not a hangout for the true legacy fans — they tend to appear in the forums — but I’ve observed a few things over the years that you may already know, of course:

a) every fan takes away something different from the fan experience and every fan has his/her own dealbreaker(s).

b) Other people’s dealbreakers don’t necessarily make sense to me but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong about them as a reason for leaving. In fact, other people’s dealbreakers are important issues — just not important in the same way to me. A good friend of mine left his fandom because in 2013 Armitage said something negative about cats, for instance. This happens because the Armitage we see becomes an extension of our identity and so when he does something that doesn’t square with that, it’s a problem. The gun issue is something that’s come up in this fandom before and it’s a huge hot-button issue for a lot of us. That, along with the apparent retraction, has set a lot of people reeling, and that’s okay. Some fans don’t care about that issue, some will stay with their image of him dinged, and a few will leave (the same thing that happened when he talked about gun control in 2013).

c) there are strongly differing attitudes in this fandom about one’s relationship to the crush (this has a lot to do with how one’s picture of him gets formed). Some people think it’s okay to joke about him, others don’t. Some people approve of everything he does, others don’t. It’s all good. In my book, apart from illegal behaviors or statements, all of these ways of being a fan are legitimate and okay, even if I don’t like some of them personally or agree with all of them or wouldn’t do them myself.

d) as I mentioned this tends to be a place for longer-term fans (I won’t go into the reasons why that is the case, but I’ve observed it over the years). That means the extreme bloom of the first euphoria is off the rose for a lot of people who comment here. It can be hard to navigate that problem in that people here don’t always seem as thrilled, or they have seen a particular pattern before and so aren’t especially eager to excuse it. A lot of people here have been watching the deleted tweet phenomenon for approaching two years and they will have their own reactions to it. However, that doesn’t mean we/they are bad fans.

e) One implication of [d] is that you need to find the place where you are comfortable and other fans share your attitudes. I’m never sure that Twitter is that place for most people, because it is the place where one is most forcefully confronted with diverse opinions. It’s the major venue at the moment, though. This may not be the place for you either, but everyone who follows the comment policy — which includes not policing other fans for things that are not illegal — is welcome here. I enforce this rule because I am in community with other fans.

f) Finally, one fundamental feature of this particular venue is that I write from the perspective that Armitage is not more important than any other person on the planet. He is my crush and 50 percent of the subject matter of this blog, but in my view, the hierarchical relationship ends there. He gets praised and criticized here in line with that view — I give him the same benefit of the doubt that I give real people in my life, but it ends there. Lots of people are not comfortable with that stance, and that’s fine.

Thank you very much, Servetus, for sharing this information. I’m not an experienced fan as you may notice. So it’s very useful for me to better understand what’s going on in the Armitsge fandome. I must admit your blog is one of the most comfortable places, together with Armitage Agonists blog. It’s hard sometimes to read some critic comments but it’s ok, each has its own opinion. I don’t know what a person he is in RL and never will know, but it’s seems to me he is a good guy with his own weakness and wants as we all ..

On twitter, I would do a search for Richard Armitage, choose “Top,” then “accounts” and “view all”: https://twitter.com/search?f=users&vertical=news&q=Richard%20Armitage&src=tyah Then you will some of the leading tweeters about Armitage. I’d just pick a bunch and follow them and see what you enjoy. There are a lot of really different groups in the fandom and most people don’t enjoy all of it. If you want to see everything anyone is saying, do that same search, and pick “Live.” Unfortunately there are a lot of tweets about the other Richard Armitage at the moment but that should wane again soon. Eventually if you like Twitter you can get a Twitter client which makes all this stuff easier to view. Right now I would suggest that you just observe what people are saying for a day or so. Some of it will fascinate you, some will repel you, some you will agree with, some you won’t — and then get involved with the places that interest you.

If you see yourself as a more traditional or conservative fan, you might want to join the discussion forums at Richard Armitage Central and C19. If you are more liberal, or really, really like images, you should probably join tumblr, although there is a decent amount of “shipping” there (discussion of a possible relationship between Armitage and Lee Pace). If you enjoy shipping, in contrast, there’s a reddit that covers that. If you like coherent discussion of career prospects and performances most, then I would suggest you get an account at imdb and log on to that board. There are a bunch of other bloggers — most of them distribute links over Twitter. On Twitter you will meet the most people but also be exposed to the greatest divergence in view points.

Do you have other specific questions? Others should feel free to chime in.

Hi Servetus, I would like you to delete my comment above. I must admit I didn’t read any policies before commenting. If it didn’t conform with your comment policy, I’m sorry. But having my words edited really gives me a bad feeling, so please delete it all together, it’s not that important anyway.

[…] What finally got me to stop lurking and actually make a comment on a blog was the continuous tweet/delete behaviour by Richard Armitage in June of 2016. It was just so perplexing and infuriating that I felt I had to make this comment on a post at Me + Richard Armitage: […]